SIN OF ABUSING THE BIBLE 2

TỘI LẠM DỤNG KINH THÁNH 2

Kinh thánh: 1Sa-mu-ên 2: 2-10

Câu gốc: 1SA-MU-ÊN 2: 7 phần A – Đức Giê-hô-va làm cho nghèo nàn, và làm cho giàu có; Ngài hạ người xuống, lại nhắc người lên.

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SIN OF ABUSING BIBLE 2

Bible: 1Samuel 2: 2-10

Main verse: 1SAMUEL 2: 7 part A – The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up.

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– As we already knew and heard, people, both unbelievers and even some Christians, used to quote Scriptures wrongly to support their way of life or to deceive others to follow their scams.

– Sadly, many Christians, because of neglecting the Bible, have fallen to their traps and hurting themselves because of that.

– That’s why we Christians should treasure the Bible and hold dear to it with our daily devotion and studies in order to understand its many meanings, to know God’s will and to be wise in this life, especially to overcome human wickedness in quoting the Bible wrongly to abuse it and deceive God’s children.

PSALM 119: 105 – Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

THI THIÊN 119: 105 – Lời Chúa là ngọn đèn cho chân tôi, ánh sáng cho đường lối tôi.

2CÔ-RINH-TÔ 2: 11 – Lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.

2CÔ-RINH-TÔ 2: 11 – Đừng để cho quỉ Sa-tan thắng chúng ta, vì chúng ta chẳng phải là không biết mưu chước của nó.

– One of Satan’s deceiving methods is quoting and interpreting the Bible wrongly, as in the case of his tempting Jesus in the desert.

– We are going to consider another example in which people have quoted the Bible wrongly to persuade Christians doing their scheme of getting power for themselves in political arena.

– Many politicians, when wanting the votes from Christians, used to quote the Bible that God wants us to help poor people. Hilariously to see such attempt, they even did not know where it was recorded in the book.

– They even had the audacity to ask Christians to support their devious robbing scheme of taking from the rich to share with the poor. We have already heard of that evil scheme in Vietnam before and many people of the South had fallen into the propaganda trap of the communists.

– As we already knew, when that kind of politicians got into power, the poor was still poor, only those politicians and their allies became so rich that their children bought fancy cars like candies.

– So, we Christians should be careful when hearing such talk and if it is possible, try to distance far way from those people in order to avoid being deceived.

– Now we consider who are counted as really poor in the Bible. This kind of social status should be illuminated under the light of Bible’s truth.

– We should understand that people became poor by many reasons, some because of misfortune like sudden disasters, accidents, sickness or natural phenomena, some because of lacking of opportunities and necessary skills, because mismanaged their talents and resources, because making bad choices, and because so being lazy that they did not want to work.

– We should also understand that people became rich by different means as well. Some because of blessings from God (like Abraham), some because of inheritance from their parents or ancestors, some because of their talents and hard work, and some because of evil ways like cheating, deceiving, thieving, manipulating, robbing and the like. So we must always be careful when interacting with people in this life.

– We know that God is The One Who blesses humans with spiritual and physical rewards, and make them becoming rich or poor, so those became poor because of the Lord wanted them to be are the one we should love and support, like those who suffered from sudden events in nature or disabled from birth:

1SAMUEL 2: 7 – The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory.

1SA-MU-ÊN 2: 7 – Đức Giê-hô-va làm cho nghèo nàn, và làm cho giàu có; Ngài hạ người xuống, lại nhắc người lên, đem kẻ khốn cùng ra khỏi bụi đất, và rút người nghèo khổ ra ngoài đống phân, đặng để họ ngồi bên các quan trưởng, Cùng ban cho một ngôi vinh hiển làm cơ nghiệp.

– Job and Lazarus were two examples of such poor people. Job became poor because God allowed Satan to attack him physically in order to test his faith, and Lazarus were poor because he was permanently sick. There were many poor people that were mentioned in the Bible but we don’t have time to list them all.

– It has been recorded in the Bible that Christians should help and support those who faced hardship like that:

LEVITICUS 25: 35 – If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you.

LÊ-VI KÝ 25: 35 – Nếu anh em ở gần ngươi trở nên nghèo khổ, tài sản người lần lần tiêu mòn, thì hãy cứu giúp người, mặc dầu là kẻ khách kiều ngụ, hầu cho người cứ ở cùng ngươi.

JAMES 5: 15 – And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

GIA-CƠ 5: 15 – Sự cầu nguyện bởi đức tin sẽ cứu kẻ bịnh, Chúa sẽ đỡ kẻ ấy dậy; nếu kẻ bịnh có phạm tội, cũng sẽ được tha.

– When talking about permanent sickness, there are some arguments that because gay people were born like that so Christians should support them and help them to advance their agendas, but in reality those people never recognize or accept that their life styles are sick or abnormal, so they do not fall in this category.

– About other people who are sick, we should also distinguish between those who were sick not by their will and those who were willing to get sick because of personal desires, like suffering lung cancer because of smoking. But we will consider it at another time with different subject than today’s.

PROVERBS 29: 7 – The righteous considers the cause of the poor, but the wicked does not understand such knowledge.

CHÂM NGÔN 29: 7 – Người công bình xét cho biết duyên cớ của kẻ nghèo khổ; Còn kẻ ác không có trí hiểu để biết đến.

– As the Bible indicates, we, as children of Light, should consider the causes of the poor, to know why they have been like that in order to love and help them properly according to God’s truth, and not doing it blindly like unbelievers and sinners who walk in darkness.

– To those are poor because of lacking wisdom and prudence in managing their resources and making bad choices, or because of lacking opportunity to work or to obtain market referral skills, we can support them and help them to be careful next time or to find suitable positions in the labor market.

– Jesus had taught us of help like that in His story of a man who went out to hire labors in nearby market, as was recorded in Matthew 20: 1-16.

– All of us Christians know how to help the poor and it has become part of our valued traditions from the time of the Apostles, as it was also a command from God:

JAMES 1: 27 – Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

GIA-CƠ 1: 27 – Sự tin đạo thanh sạch không vết, trước mặt Đức Chúa Trời, Cha chúng ta, là thăm viếng kẻ mồ côi, người góa bụa trong cơn khốn khó của họ, và giữ lấy mình cho khỏi sự ô uế của thế gian.

– But we must notice that nowhere in the Bible God taught us to break laws in order to help the poor, or worse, to steal from the rich and share with the poor, as some politicians have asked Christians to do.

– According to the Bible, personal integrity is better than breaking God’s law or human’s one to avoid poverty. And it’s surely better than those politicians who used lip service to the poor and to deceive God’s children supporting their agendas.

PROVERBS 19: 1 – Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one who is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.

CHÂM NGÔN 19: 1 – Thà người nghèo khổ ăn ở thanh liêm, còn hơn là kẻ có môi miệng gian tà và là một kẻ ngây dại.

– That’s why we should be careful when asked by politicians to help poor migrants to break the immigration law of this country. According to the Bible, once a person committed one kind of sins, he was considered committing all the sins:

JAMES 2: 10 – For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.

GIA-CƠ 2: 10 – Vì người nào giữ trọn luật pháp, mà phạm một điều răn, thì cũng đáng tội như đã phạm hết thảy.

– We must know something about career politicians. They have been those who told us to keep obeying the laws that benefiting them and asked us to break those that preventing them advancing their agendas. So we should be real careful about them when they ask us to do something.

– Let us considering this: When we wanted to help poor and hungry people, would we be willing to break into a house to steal food for them or to wait for the homeowner coming back and ask him nicely to help? We all know the answer because of the holy standards that we have in the Bible.

PROVERBS 28: 6 – Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one perverse in his ways, though he be rich.

CHÂM NGÔN 28: 6 – Thà người nghèo khổ ăn ở cách thanh liêm, còn hơn là kẻ giàu có theo đường tà vạy.

PROVERBS 18: 23 – The poor man uses entreaties, but the rich answers roughly

CHÂM NGÔN 18: 23 – Người nghèo dùng lời cầu xin; Còn kẻ giàu đáp lại cách xẳng xớm.

– The integrity in us is not taking anything that does not belong to us, for ourselves or to help the poor. So, waiting for help is the good thing that we must understand. We Vietnamese boat people had waited many years for help in refugee camps when escaping the communists, and now other migrants, in their turn, should do that, too.

– Therefore, in these modern days of lie and deceiving in every aspect of human life, we Christians should always be on our guard every time we hear a politician quoting Scripture to ask us doing something or supporting them in their quest of seizing power for themselves.

– We must always diligent when hearing such talk. Doing that we will protect ourselves and our families from deceivers and can be able to live a peaceful, joyous life that God has intended for us.

– May God help us to understand His incorruptible truth with every word in the Bible so that we can always walk in wisdom until we see Him face to face. Amen.

(will be continued)